Strong, smart characters and a daring quest result in a Victorian love story with a charmingly modern sensibility.
An independent woman struggles to reconcile love and freedom in this historical romance.
Book 2 of Matthews’ (A Holiday by Gaslight, 2018, etc.) Parish Orphans of Devon series picks up with Jenny Holloway and Thomas Finchley, two characters familiar to readers of the first installment. Jenny, a former lady’s companion, has been gifted an inheritance and seeks adventure. But her money is controlled by Tom, a talented lawyer who trades in secrets. When Jenny sets out for India in search of a cousin who is presumed dead, Tom is compelled to accompany her. The pair, posing as brother and sister for propriety’s sake, embark on a long journey to Delhi. Their time together in close quarters on ships and trains only strengthens their mutual attraction. But Jenny is loath to give up her newfound liberty for a man, even one as kind and unusual as Tom. Though he tries to convince Jenny that he would never infringe on her autonomy, the realities of being a woman in Victorian society weigh heavily against him. The couple’s journey across Egypt and India is full of colorful and descriptive prose. Jenny’s first taste of spicy curry and the international blend of humanity on the streets of Calcutta firmly situate readers in a striking past. As always, Matthews’ attention to historical accuracy is impeccable. From the rigid standards and expectations of Victorian courtship to the siege of Jhansi, she has clearly done her research. Her characters are a refreshing change from the typical genre protagonists; for example, there is “nothing particularly remarkable about Thomas Finchley,” the author writes. Yet his intellect and unabashed kindness are the stuff of true romance. As Jenny amusingly observes, a man who can navigate bureaucracy is far more useful than the white knights of penny novels. While Tom’s relationship with Jenny remains mostly chaste, Matthews manages to imbue their interactions with an enviable romantic tension.
Strong, smart characters and a daring quest result in a Victorian love story with a charmingly modern sensibility.Pub Date: April 23, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9990364-9-5
Page Count: 399
Publisher: Perfectly Proper Press
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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